MAB

I don't think it has to be a playset to be a minifigure scale / minifigure based set. Rivendell is a perfect example of a display set with minifigures and some play features, although adults often prefer them to be called Easter Eggs or hidden features. The courtyard with tree, citadel and hall are a reasonably large area. If they did a building facade roughly 40 studs wide and maybe only 16 deep, they could do the whole of the courtyard about 36 studs in diameter, with the tree. I doubt the 'runway' really adds much for display but a short region could be added even if it is nowhere near long enough. Although there are some nice microscale MOCs of the whole city, I don't think they fit with what they have recently done and I'd skip it if LEGO did one.

Yes a lot might interest kids. Barbie - rival to minidoll (both Friends and licensed). They have done Barbie building sets before but with much larger pieces. Hot Wheels - buildable and customisable Hot Wheels, rival to LEGO's various toy car offerings. And large Hot Wheels - scaled up version of their classics for the adult market. American Girl, Angelina Ballerina, Barney, Bob the Builder, and so on - all brands that could have building sets with miniature figures whether minifigure style or DUPLO style. That is just up to B. There are plenty of others - Fireman Sam, Thomas the Tank Engine, Hello Kitty, and so on. They have existing tie-ins with WWE. I can imagine a series of minifigures selling small building sets well with a big ring set. I've not watched it for years, but I could see them doing things like Eddie Guerrero's low rider being popular with nostalgic adults or similar for any of the current roster. That is licensed stuff. No doubt they could do rivals to things like Creator and City and so on. Many adults don't care about the LEGO branding especially when buying for kids but I think also themselves now LEGO is tending to go more and more expensive. But the big one could be - MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. I reckon that could be huge for the adult market. A Mattel owned brand. The series was originally developed as a way to market toys. Kids that grew up with it are now nostalgic rich adults. Castle Greyskull and the Royal Palace as flagship sets, loads of smaller sets to include one or two of the characters. And similar with HALO. They were a big step up from figures they were doing before such as the Marvel minifigures before LEGO go that deal back from Mega. I reckon there is plenty of room for licensed sets of much more screen accurate and articulated minifigures that can interact with brick-built scenes. Especially with licensed characters, the ability to mix and match figure parts is not so important, so they can do much more realstic versions of characters looks, outfits, size / height, etc. And have them articulated for posing too. There are probably lots of ways they could take it if they want to take a bigger share of the brick building market.

That is why I would go with a fairly narrow facade for the hall / citadel, essentially as a backdrop for the courtyard. It wouldn't even need to be to scale for height. I guess the advantage of an all in one set is that it is (i) impressive so appeals to adults and (ii) fairly coherent as a single build / display. But that said, I'd take individual playsets or a 'big box' style playset, a bit like Assault on Hoth was but with the difference that it hasn't all been done before.

If they did that, I'd predict the words "cash grab" being used. Along with why did they split the (important) minifigures across both sets forcing fans to buy both rather than putting the (important) ones into the top section and leaving the bottom section for the (obscure) minifigures for die hard fans only. And everyone's important definition of important and obscure being different. I think you can do the top section of Minas Tirith reasonable well with a fairly narrow facade of the hall/citadel, the courtyard and tree, a raised rocky area with a beacon, and a bit of wall. That covers most scenes in a compact model. They could even go further and have the whole lot raised just slightly and have the great gate at the lowest point. Obviously the shape of the whole city is wrong, but similar to the way they got all of Rivendell into one reasonably coherent model. Whatever they do, we are not going to get the entire city looking like it does in the movies and have a decent minifigure scale area at the top. Even just two or three layers of the city will use lot of bricks just to lift those higher rings. I think I would prefer a decent scale top section to an inverted cone with a small area for the top.

With hairpieces like those I tend to wait now. There is a good chance that they will do a cheap polybag or comic gift with them in, and if they do there will be loads on BL.

They've done it before with Barbie brick sets too. I wonder if their offerings will be based on their own licenses or other IP or if they will try to take some of the brick market with generic City type sets or Creator type sets.

Same here. I cannot really imagine a set double the size of Rivendell being popular both in terms of cost but also importantly size. Big sets can work for ships in Star Wars as they are a single object. Whereas what we have so far for LOTR especially Rivendell is somewhat hollow in that they are more landscape combining lots of small regions and I imagine Minas Tirith being a city would follow that. Would many people buy two Rivendells at once? I think they'd lose buyers overall compared to doing a decent set at similar scale as Rivendell. Doubling the size doesn't necessarily double the pleasure.

It adds to the cost though if every new character gets its own screen accurate pieces. Accurate hair for Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin would all be slightly different as their onscreen hair is different, and they would all be different to those for Michael Knight, Lee Jordan, Charlie Weasley, and Gray Mitchell. However, they all look fine sharing the same hair piece when you consider minifigures are not accurate scale models or action figures. If there was something so spectacular and unique about the character, then I expect them to do it. So if they did a The Hobbit version of Lobelia, I would expect them to do it in a similar way to Red Harrington from The Lone Ranger, as the hat and hairstyle makes that character unique. Whereas if you have to pause a movie to check if the length of the hair on a minifigure is actually screen accurate as there is nothing else really special about it, then I don't think it needs a new mold created for that single use.

None. I just don't think we need a new hairpiece for such a minor character when existing ones work fine. How many people are out there thinking: We are getting a new LOTR version of Bag End but I'll skip it if they don't do a Lobelia minifigure, and she must have a new hairpiece. I imagine there are people (both AFOLs and fans of the movies) that have skipped Rivendell because of he price and size but would buy the smaller Bag End and so recognizable characters like Merry and Pippin ought to be in it ahead of minor characters that many wouldn't recognize if the character name wasn't on the box.

If everyone is doing it for the same reason though - to save it for the community - then it ends up with allies with a common goal out-bidding each other and increasing the price someone has to pay.

If they did Lobelia, there are plenty of female hair pieces already existing. I would hope they didn't use a new mould for a character that has so little screen time I doubt most people could describe how her hair is different to already existing parts without pausing the movie and taking a screenshot (as below). Her hair is not so different to the usual hobbit hair but of course this is used to represent the male hobbit shorter hair even though it is a but too volumous. I imagine they'd probably use a different one to distinguish male from female. The Dana/Rosmerta hair would be fine for me when you compare their on screen versions. It is too big, but then the existing hobbit hair is too big, in the same way that minifigure heads are too big a bit like bobble heads especiallywhen they use short legs.

Every person contacting them and asking about buying it is probably pushing the price up.

The post I responded to said acquire the domain, not the company. This would be different to twitter/X as there the company was sold. If the Brickshelf LLC becomes defunct and the domain is later acquired, that is not the same company.

Very different costume, and that is a movie series they are not currently making sets for. If they were to do another The Hobbit version of Bag End, then I imagine most people now would want all the dwarves before they do a Lobelia figure.

Whoever or whatever owned it would need to be careful if they are using submissions to the old site. Just about everything uploaded in the past was copyright the original designer / creator. They gave permission for the old brickshelf to display their work. A new brickshelf would be a new entity and the designers did not originally give permission for others to download their work, and upload it to a new site even if it has the same name. No doubt many designers won't care as it is alreafy out there but if one does, they should have a right not to have their work shared by a new entity. Especially if the new site earned anything through advertising or other means to be self-funding to future protect it, someone else making money of their work may swing creators' views.

Type lunar into bricklink. Many of the sets depict part of the surface of the moon.

Merry and Pippin parts already exist, they had screentime and people recognize them. They are two easy figures for LEGO to include again. LEGO could do all new parrs for Lobelia but then they can probably make a reasonable Lobelia figure from existing parts too, the brief time she was onscreen means they could get away with pretty much anything for her (just like Gloin re-using Owen Grady's torso).

Wasn't Lobelia only onscreen for a few seconds in the extended edition of FOTR? There were complaints when they did Mouth of Sauron in the Black Gate but at least he had a scene. Other hobbits had more significant roles at the party.

There are many parts, especially technic, where the old moulds did not have the lego logo whereas the more recent versions do. You have to be careful saying something is obviously fake when you are not comparing like with like, even more so when it came from a sealed lego bag inside a sealed lego box. And even more when it came from an established lego seller with a long history of selling genuine lego.

Yes, but many people use the number of minifigures as a metric and expect a decent number and LEGO have shown they are willing to reuse prints even though they are not really appropriate. Pippin's torso has already been used in HP and as Shackleton and has been available in PAB. Presumably adding existing minifig parts is minimal cost but high perceived value in the minifig count.

That is not my experience when selling on BL. Most of the sealed sets I have sold are from about 2008 onwards, but I have sold probably 25-30 sealed sets from before that. In a few cases, buyers have said that they wanted to build them since they were a kid. For some people, the price doesn’t matter too much and it gives them the joy of opening and building the set.

It wouldn't surprise me if they reused Merry and Pippin in their outfits from Rivendell, like they already did with Frodo and Sam in Barad-Dur.

To me it does make sense that the tires are a bit dirty. They are a couple of decades old and have been stored rubbing up against other tyres, parts, cardboard and paper. That dirt looks like a combination of paper and rubber bloom. The paper fibres are most obvious on the black tubing. That really looks like the tiny fibres of paper it would have picked up when it rubs against the edges of the manual and inside the cardboard box. Remember those manuals were probably cut with a guillotine style cutter that leaves lots of little fragments that will fall off when the contents of the box shift. Scratches occur when the box is moved and the rubber tires rub against the digger bucket. The dirt is on the edges and treads, whereas if used then the dirt would be on the treads and there would be proper wear of the rubber. Dirt on edges is consistent with rubbing against parts and bags as it shifts inside the box whereas wear on the tread would be consistent with use. For its age, I'd say that box was pretty decent condition. The tab looked genuine and there are no tears on the box near where it should be. It seems you are not that knowledgeable about vintage sets. You didn't know about the tape around the hoses, the way boxes with flap lids were sealed, the way that numbering for bags was only introduced later, perforated bags, you didn't know about the lego logo not being on all parts, ... You should prbably familiarise yourself with one of the bricklink rules about new and sealed sets: Sealed - Set is brand new, with unopened factory seals intact, all inner bags and contents presumably sealed, intact, complete and untampered with as shipped by the manufacturer. The seller cannot guarantee that a sealed set is complete. Note that the seller cannot guarantee contents of the set if it is sealed. To do so, they'd have to open it. Similarly, they cannot tell you the condition of the parts inside or the effect of aging if it is still as originally sealed and not tampered with (which this one appears to be). You are probably best off sticking to modern new sets from retailers or second hand sets rather than buying vintage new/sealed sets.

I cannot see hairs on them, but it may be that the photo is not showing what you see up close. The scratching and discolouring could be due to what they have been next to in the box. Similarly, the "hairs" could be paper or card dust from inside the box. The edges of instruction manuals when cut often have thin paper filaments that could stick to decades old rubber. I'm also not surprised that the different sets of wheels have aged differently. Different thicknesses, slightly different materials, they age differently but similar to the other ones the same. Remember that these were nto meant to be stored away for decades and rubber degrades even when kept in a sealed box. Just because someone doesn't agree with you does not mean that they are a shill. Again, just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean that they are delusional. It means they have a different experience to you and may well have come across many similar parts in newly opened old sets. In the past I've opened sealed 1970s sets where the small tyres have looked like they have almost melted, being quite flat on one side, presumable from being in the position in the box and not moved for years or where the tyres have been quite sticky. But again, they were not meant to be stored for 40+ years before opening them. It is a risk you take when buynig new sealed sets.

That is very nice, especially the curl on the motion of the wings. It is also good to see the test models.